"Greg Egan - Mind Vampires" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

address, of course. Hardly the thing to do. I mean, would you? I hunt the
old, dark-hidden, overgrown houses as the fortnight slips away from me.
Jack's walking in sunlight and feeding so far from the full moon are
disturbing. What will his father be like when he decides to strike? Every
cellar I breach nearly stops my heart, but they are all empty and peaceful;
cool air and silence protest their pure innocence to me as I scour cobwebbed
corners with lamplight. I smile at the unfairness: I cannot rejoice that a
place is clean, that I smell no evil, that I will face no risks for a few
kind minutes, for every safe house is a failure, every moment without threat
only postpones the danger I must face in the end. I'd rather not be who I am,
but my reputation is the highest. Bloody pigeons, headless in the snow,
unsettle the girls. There are more nightmares, more night walks; a warm,
damp, unnatural wind blows an hour before dawn. I fortify the windows with
steel bars, garlic and crucifixes, but there is always a way in left
unprotected, it is inevitable. Perhaps it is my weariness, but the shadows I
cast seem to follow me with increasing reluctance. Indeed they conform to my
movements, but I swear that they do so an eyeblink too late. My reflections
do not move at all: they stare, transfixed, over my shoulder, fascinated by
that empty space, hypnotised by its potential occupants. The headmistress
complains, she expected so much more of me. The strain is becoming too much,
she sobs. Her weeping blinds her, and when she smells why she falls screaming
to the floor. I continue to search, but I fail for the first time ever to
locate their hiding place. They will only face me when they choose to do so,
at the very height of their powers. I leave my room at the inn and sleep in
the attic of the dormitory building. From my bed I hear the girls swapping
secrets, and through my window drifts the stench of the dark buds which break
through the snow. I dream that I lie naked in the middle of the moonlit
fields. My eyes are closed. I feel sharp snow against my back. Footsteps,
girls whispering. I recall walking past two students, overhearing: тАЬOh, much
handsomer than Jack!тАЭ When they saw me they blushed and turned away. A warm,
wet tongue slides across my eyelids, my lips, down my chin and throat,
awakening each tiny point of stubble it brushes. Between my ribs, across my
stomach, it leaves a snail track of sticky, moistened hair. Soft lips enclose
my penis, the warm tongue wraps and caresses it. A young voice: тАЬYou didn't!
You can't have! With him? Oh, tell us!тАЭ As I shudder and struggle to prolong
the pleasure, a phrase enters my mind and jolts me into awareness: тАЬthe erect
penis is engorged with blood.тАЭ Engorged. Engorged with blood. Suddenly I have
vision: I see the scene from above. My hands are behind my back, my legs
splayed, my back arched. I am utterly naked and defenceless. A glistening
streak of red bisects me, and a giant she-vampire clad in black iron armour
sucks at me noisily, an animal sound. My view expands, and despair takes hold
of me: ringing us is a circle of her kin, some fifty feet across. Each one
bears a poison-tipped sword and a grievance against me for their friends that
I've dispatched. The tongue works frantically, and I understand that she had
been forbidden to strike with her fangs until the instant of ejaculation. My
concentration falters, and I feel the lips draw back. Awake, shaving, I cut
myself in three places. In the shaving water I find a swollen leech; I slice
it open and the water turns black and foul. A serving girl discovers the
headmistress; she has hanged herself in her Sunday best (now who will sign my
cheques?) after writing the word with lipstick and rouge upon every surface